The present invention relates to human-to-mobile interfaces and particularly, but not exclusively, to data input apparatus and to an interface system, both for facilitating a reduction in the number of key presses required to create a data string (i.e. mnemonics, abbreviations, words, sentences etc.) on a mobile telephone or device equivalent.
Conventional mobile technologies (MT) include basic keypads, navigation means and screen components. The integration of various other add-on accessories into the device, or the connections of external accessories are also possible.
Conventional keypads consist of alphanumeric telephone keys (as shown in FIG. 1); dynamic menu keys that correspond to displayed options controlled and varied by software; and back and cancel keys. Some mobile devices have attachable foldaway or built-in QWERTY or similar keyboards with individual keys for each alphanumeric legend.
Navigation systems include joysticks or cursor keys which can move or indicate left, right, up, down, circular clockwise, circular anti-clockwise, and an activation press down (i.e. trigger-down like a button) either via a direct vertical trigger-down or relative to the motion of navigation trigger-down. A press down activity is a trigger for an event to occur or to be processed by the resident or currently active software systems.
Standard to mobile technologies (MT), are display screens providing displays in either text form or graphic form. The latter is predominant in Smart Phones and PDA systems and provides a versatile Graphical User Interface (GUI) required for the sophisticated software that is usually installed within advanced MT devices.
Other physical aspects can be included that correspond to various other software features. These features run in conjunction with embedded hardware or firmware such as infrared transmitters or wireless/radio transmitters, or connectivity interfaces that enable extension modules such as portable keyboards, computer docking or hands-free accessories to be integrated into or connected to the MT device. Camera systems are also prevalent on MT devices. Touch-pads or touch-screens are also available on MT devices, such as PDA systems.
For mobile telephones in particular, current data-input means are extremely limiting, arduous and inefficient. For example, a user must repeatedly press the same key on a keypad in order to scroll sequentially through each alphanumeric option until the desired character is highlighted or displayed. For example, to display the letter ‘b’, key ‘2’ must be pressed twice. This method must be repeated for every character required in the composition of a desired word. Despite advancements in mobile telephone performance and handset sizing, data inputting means have remained largely unchanged for over 40 years.
Short Message Service (SMS) text messages allow mobile telephone users to send short alphanumeric messages to other mobile telephones that support the SMS utility. The huge use of SMS Texting has created diverse dictionaries of shortcuts, acronyms, abbreviations, emoticons and conversions of words and phrases, each with the aim of reducing the number of key presses required to convey information. For example, “are you free to chat” may be abbreviated to “ruf2c” to reduce the number of key presses.
To type the following SMS text message “Dear Friend, Please call me as soon as possible to fix a date for another meeting”, extensive and repetitive keying is required as depicted in FIG. 2. Upper casing of letters (Key ‘*’ x3=3), general punctuation (Key ‘1’ x2=2) and spacing between words (Key ‘#’ x15=15) accounts for an additional +20 key presses.
When the same key needs to be used successively to access another alphanumeric character assigned to the same key, a pause is required to register the first selection before continuing with accessing the following selection. This is because conventional systems need to distinguish between a user's intention to select the highlighted alphanumeric character and a user's intention to continue scrolling through the assigned alphanumeric characters to access an alternative character ascribed to that same key.
The difficulty with SMS text messaging dictionaries is that they use colloquial or slang terms and are therefore largely user specific. One colloquial or slang term may not be easily understood by another user, and different users tend to create different shortcuts for the same word or phrase. There is no consistency in SMS text messaging dictionaries because they are not standard, regulated or shared on a consistent basis. Instead, they have become customised on a regional and per user or per language basis.
Although SMS text messaging is a modern idiom, it does provide critical communication means for people with disabilities, particularly those who have hearing disabilities.
Human-to-Mobile Interfaces (HMI) need to change in order to fulfil the capacity at which the technology permits optimal use of itself. In particular, there is a need for a human-to-mobile interface which reduces actual physical interactivity (i.e. data input or key presses) while still using existing keyboards, keypads or other conventional input methods or mediums. In this way, a cost effective means to evolve interface methods progressively into the next generation of more advanced and more efficient HMI systems will be achieved.